State to hold hearing on Yukon landfill expansion

Environmental regulators on Thursday will review plans and take testimony on a Yukon industrial waste treatment firm’s bid for approval to build a 14-acre landfill that could hold 1 million tons of treated hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste.

During a public meeting and hearing beginning at 6 p.m. on Dec. 1, at the Yukon Volunteer Fire Department hall at 124 Highway St., state Department of Environmental Protection officials will discuss MAX Environmental Technologies Inc.’s proposal to build a seventh landfill on its 159-acre site that can store treated industrial wastes and dispose of approved industrial wastes.

The public hearing to take testimony about the company’s expansion plans for the site off Spring Street in South Huntingdon, will start after the meeting is finished.

The public meeting and hearing is another phase in Green Tree-based MAX Environmental’s four-year process to win approval from the state to build the new landfill at its site in South Huntingdon. MAX had discussed the project at a public meeting in Yukon in late January 2020, some six weeks before government and business operations were impacted by the covid pandemic.

“We expect that the Landfill 7 review process will continue for another year or two. The cost for developing the new landfill hasn’t been fully determined yet, but we think it will be several million dollars,” said Carl Spadaro, general manager for MAX Environmental. The new landfill would allow certain hazardous wastes to be added to the approved list for on-site disposal, Spadaro said in a statement.

The DEP on Sept. 21 determined that MAX Environmental fulfilled the requirements for the first phase of the technical review that determined the site complied with the state’s criteria for hazardous waste disposal facilities, said Lauren Camarda, a DEP spokeswoman in Pittsburgh.

Regulators are conducting a technical review of the application to determine if the proposed site complies with the relevant regulations. The state is required to decide by Feb. 21 whether the proposed site conforms to the criteria established by the state for such landfills, Camarda said.

As part of the review the DEP would determine if the company meets requirements for protecting wetlands, farmlands, watersheds with protected streams, floodplains, streams and water supplies, MAX Environmental said.

If the site meets applicable criteria, Camarda said MAX Environmental still must submit an application for a state permit that would have to be approved before the company would be permitted to build the new landfill or dump waste in it. The company has said it would phase-in operations at the new landfill.

The operations at Yukon, by both MAX Environmental and its predecessor, Mill Service, have long been a target of complaints of bad odors and dust wafting from the wastes dumped at the landfill. South Huntingdon had fined MAX Environmental in the past for violating township regulations on odors and the dust. A citizens group in the 1980s had raised concerns about the environmental impact of the operations.

Richard Gates, a South Huntingdon supervisor, said the three-member board of commissioners has not discussed the proposed expansion of the landfill or taken an official position on the project.

Craig Zafaras, who lives near the landfill and has lodged complaints about the odor and dust blowing onto his house, said his concern about that proposed landfill is similar to that of the township’s —“it’s too close to Sewickley Creek.”

MAX Environmental has stated it will monitor the water in Sewickley Creek, upstream and downstream of the site.

A spokesperson for the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association could not be reached for comment.